


Here's Looking at You

by rivkat



Category: Fringe
Genre: Brown Betty AU, Eight crazy nights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-04
Updated: 2011-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/pseuds/rivkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hints of Esther/Olivia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's Looking at You

Peter leaves to sail around the world on a Tuesday. Olivia kisses him goodbye at the docks, waves as the ship slowly disappears into the harbor. Thinks about what it would have been like, to go with him. They probably had an orchestra on board. Maybe there would’ve been dancing.

But Olivia has to stand on her own two feet. She’s gotta work for her rent; can’t take off on a whim the way some can. Maybe Peter will come back with the itch out of his shoes, and she’d like to see that, really she would. Until then, there’s other hearts that need protecting.

Esther takes three days to come back. She would’ve made it in two if Olivia had asked nicely, except that Olivia knew that she was visiting her sisters and didn’t want to interfere. So instead Olivia just hinted that the position remained open, and that she’d hate to have to turn down some needy citizen for want of a good assistant. Sure, there was some cajoling in there as well, promises that the first dollar she saw would go eighty cents to Esther, and so on (at least until she was only a month behind). She knew Esther was good for it as soon as Esther sighed and said, loud enough that Olivia could hear, “I have to take this, Jeannie. It’s my boss.”

After saving Peter, and being saved by Peter, Olivia’s willing to see the bright side of life again, which for her means taking cases that actually pay, and breaking the news gently to the deceived wives and husbands, or in one notable case to the deceived lover—“It’s not that I couldn’t get past her being married,” the client says, weeping, “but she told me she was an _environmentalist_ , and that house was built with coal money!” The world hasn’t magically become a perfect landscape of love and harmony because Olivia’s faith in humanity has been restored, and a good thing too because how would she eat then? But it’s enough for her to know that there are other people out there who turn outwards instead of into themselves; she doesn’t need to pretend that the whole world is like that.

Now that she’s not looking for the secret rot carried in every heart, she pays more attention to Esther. It was easy to tell herself that she was teaching Esther what she’d already learned, that life has no patience for suckers and that wising up was the only solution. But Esther brings daffodils into the office, flash of yellow at the corner of her desk that’s like spring is smiling at them, and Esther stays late to finish typing up the reports that Olivia leaves for her misspelled and hand-scrawled. Esther always carries a sewing kit and a tiny flashlight. Olivia, on the other hand, always carries a gun and an extra clip, plus a packet of peanuts. Esther wears sensible stockings but elaborate shoes. Esther likes licorice best, but she buys chocolate so that Olivia can steal it from her top drawer.

Esther gets pretty terrified when the cheating husband busts into the office. Olivia is around the corner getting lunch when he showed up, which means that Esther listens to him ranting for nearly five minutes until Olivia returns. At that point he turns his anger on her, because Olivia is the one who’d delivered the pictures and Olivia is the one he’s determined to make pay for his transgressions. Olivia could’ve told him, but declined to do so: his mistake is ignoring Esther. (Okay, his mistake was schtupping his wife’s sister, but one thing at a time.) Esther swings the lamp like the bases are loaded at Fenway, knocking the man’s arm so that his shot goes wild, and then Olivia puts him down with a one-two combo she learned from Broyles, a lifetime ago.

Not all the cases are that exciting, though. There’s wayward kids and malfeasance by accountants, and a pet dog so badly behaved that Olivia cannot believe that anyone actually wants it back, but they’re all money in the bank. Or, anyway, money in someone’s bank, given the bills Olivia has to pay.

“Why _do_ you stick around?” she asks Esther one day, after they’ve spent an hour chasing a mouse into a metal trashcan. By mutual agreement, Olivia took it outside while Esther berated the landlord and secured a promise of an exterminator tomorrow.

“Maybe because I keep hoping to get my back pay?” Esther says. But Olivia knows that the small upward curve of her lips really means: you know why.

And yeah, Olivia does.


End file.
